(670 The Score) The White Sox aren’t just a bad baseball team. They’re also a club that has now offended the sensibilities of their fans and manager Pedro Grifol with a lack of effort.
White Sox center fielder Luis Robert Jr. was benched by Grifol for failing to hustle to first base after hitting a groundball in the team’s 12-3 loss to the Rays on Saturday evening at Guaranteed Rate Field. Robert’s blunder came as he led off in the bottom of the first inning by hitting a chopper to the third-base side of Rays right-hander Calvin Faucher. After initially coming out of the box with respectable effort, Robert decelerated to a slow jog about halfway down the line and was thrown out. It appeared as if Robert would’ve easily beaten the throw if he had sprinted down the line.
Robert initially stayed in the game to play defense in the top of the second inning, then was removed by Grifol.
"Luis is a really hard worker, plays hard," Grifol said. "He might have just had a mental lapse. And our expectations are we got to run hard down the line. This is not a common occurrence with Luis. As a matter of fact, I've talked to him about slowing down a little bit in practices and making sure he saves some of it. Because he's really a hard worker. But our expectations are you run hard down the line, and that was it. He might have just had a mental lapse on that. I'm not sure.
"I just spoke to him, and I told him that we got to run hard down the line. That's it."
After the game, Robert explained his side of the matter. He woke up Saturday morning experiencing tightness in his right hamstring and "decided to play conservative today," he said through a translator. That was the reason for his slow jog to first base.
"My mistake was that I didn't tell anybody, I didn't tell the manager before the game," Robert told reporters. "Because I knew if I said something to him, he probably wouldn't let me play."
The White Sox didn't cite any injury for Robert when he exited early, only calling it a managerial decision.
"I wasn't feeling like I was 100%," Robert said. "I tried to play it safe. That's what happened. Unfortunately the first at-bat of the game, that occurred.
"I understand the decision that (Grifol) made, because he didn't know (that I was ailing).
"People that know me, they know that I'm always doing my best running hard down the line. I definitely understand why he made the decision that he made."
Robert only told shortstop Elvis Andrus and designated hitter Eloy Jimenez -- who occasionally plays right field -- of his ailing hamstring before the game, mentioning he could use help tracking down flyballs in this game.
Robert entered the day hitting .215 with a .661 OPS, which were extremely disappointing numbers for a player with his talent. With their setback Saturday, the White Sox dropped to 7-21 and are now riding a 10-game losing streak, their longest since 2013.
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